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The Scotch Tape Nail Tutorial

To start, make sure your nails don’t have any polish on them. I like using 100% Acetone. It takes the polish right off. The cotton swabs I got at the Dollar Store. After my nails are clean, I file them with my nifty 4 step filer. It is convenient and makes the nails all shiny. I always put on lotion before too. The Q-Tips you see at the bottom are a special kind, they’re specifically for nails and the cotton is much more packed together (tighter) than normal ones so that the cotton doesn’t get everywhere. They’re really nice for precision.

After my nails were prepped.

Base coat is next!

After all received Base Coat. I don’t do this as often as I should, because it protects the nails from turning yellow-ish caused by staining. As you can see, my nails aren’t exactly white. So base coat!

For this particular design, I put one coat of OPI Samoan Sands. I like this shade because it reminds me of concealer for nails. I use it when I want to look like the color is my natural nail color.

After the coat is finished, you have to wait at least 10 minutes for the polish to dry.

While you’re waiting, get your tape ready. Take one or two inch pieces and press them against your hand a few times until the adhesive-ness (I am pretty sure that’s not a word) is less…adhesive, haha and put them aside to wait. You can do a piece for every nail, but I don’t like to waste, so I usually use one piece of tape a couple of times at least. Remember to take the adhesive level down, or you’ll end up taking your polish off and will have to start over!!

After ten minutes, you should be ready to start the scotch tape nail art. Just make sure the polish isn’t wet or tacky at all. It may take longer depending on how many coats you have on and the type of polish you’re using. And probably how humid it is where you are.

Place the tape on your nail, leaving the portion you want in the original color covered and the part you want in the new color uncovered.

Next, use the color to go over the part that isn’t covered by the tape. Make sure the tape is touching your nail all the way so it doesn’t bleed under the tape.

Remove the tape! After that, you just need to repeat on all the nails. There are so many designs you can do with tape. These are some of the easiest.

A triangle design using two pieces of tape.

You can just play around with it until you find a design you like. Add a top coat to make sure that the polish stays shiny and lasts longer. My favorite top coat so far is China Glaze No Chip top coat. I haven’t tried Seche Vite, but I hear they have the best top coat.

See some of my previous nail designs using tape:

Patriotic Nails (the red over the blue done with tape. White stripes were nail brush)